Re: Text loading question Dec. 10, 2008
 

E.D.G. wrote:
> It is surprising to me that this type of command was not built into html
> when it was developed. It would seem to me to be a logical addition.

That was the shtml somebody already talked about. I used that in at
least 1997, so some 10 years ago.

In hindsight it might have been. At that moment a LOT of things where
absolutely not possible. It was developed to show documents.

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/book4/ch02.html
Especialy:
Tim bases his HTML on an existing internationally agreed upon method of
text mark-up

The HTML that Tim invented was strongly based on SGML (Standard
Generalized Mark-up Language), an internationally agreed upon method for
marking up text into structural units such as paragraphs, headings, list
items and so on. SGML could be implemented on any machine. The idea was
that the language was independent of the formatter (the browser or other
viewing software) which actually displayed the text on the screen. The
use of pairs of tags such as <TITLE> and </TITLE> is taken directly from
SGML, which does exactly the same. The SGML elements used in Tim's HTML
included P (paragraph); H1 through H6 (heading level 1 through heading
level 6); OL (ordered lists); UL (unordered lists); LI (list items) and
various others. What SGML does not include, of course, are hypertext
links: the idea of using the anchor element with the HREF attribute was
purely Tim's invention, as was the now-famous `www.name.name' format for
addressing machines on the Web.

Basing HTML on SGML was a brilliant idea: other people would have
invented their own language from scratch but this might have been much
less reliable, as well as less acceptable to the rest of the Internet
community. Certainly the simplicity of HTML, and the use of the anchor
element A for creating hypertext links, was what made Tim's invention so
useful.

houghi
--
You can have my keyboard ...
if you can pry it from my dead, cold, stiff fingers

Re: Text loading question Dec. 10, 2008
 

E.D.G. wrote:
> It is amazing how the Internet has changed the world. And some of the most
> useful applications are yet to come. I am working on a few possible
> applications myself.

I can understand that you are biassed, but it is only afterwards that we
can tell wether they were usefull or not. Some people still think flash
is usefull. ;-)

houghi
--
You can have my keyboard ...
if you can pry it from my dead, cold, stiff fingers